State of the Union Addresses (SOUA) by two recent US Presidents, President
Obama (2016) and President Trump (2018), and a series of recent of tweets by
President Trump, are analysed by means of the data mining technique, sentiment
analysis. The intention is to explore the contents and sentiments of the
messages contained, the degree to which they dier, and their potential implications
for the national mood and state of the economy. President Trump's 2018
SOUA and his sample tweets are identied as being more positive in sentiment
than President Obama's 2016 SOUA. This is conrmed by bootstrapped t tests
and non-parametric sign tests on components of the respective sentiment scores.
The issue of whether overly positive pronouncements amount to self-promotion,
rather than intrinsic merit or sentiment, is a topic for future research